


Letting Go

by rum_ham



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: M/M, Splitting, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 06:52:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7350388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rum_ham/pseuds/rum_ham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After leaving the bar, at the end of 'the gang broke dee,' Dennis was pretty broken himself. So he went to another bar in Philly to put himself back together, with the help of a new friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Letting Go

Instead of Dennis’ usual outbursts of rage, he coped using denial. As he took long, strident steps, stomping so loud that people a block away could hear him, he muttered to himself “I don’t give a shit.” He had never felt so out of control in his life. He thought he had such a strong hold on every member of the gang. A strong hold that let him manipulate them into doing whatever he wanted. This shattered everything. Including him. 

Nostrils flared, his veins practically popping out of his forehead and neck, his huffing much more disrupting and obnoxious than he thought, he barged into a different bar. A bar possibly even more run down than his own. He sat down and ordered a beer. The more he thought about it, the angrier it made him. He ordered drink after drink, he didn’t want to remember any of this. During his haze of angry, near incomprehensible thoughts, he began speaking out loud and was somehow able to catch the attention of the man sitting next to him. His name was Matt.

“I can’t believe Dee did that, you know?” Dennis slurred. Matt nodded in response to most of the things he said, but Dennis was too drunk to see or care that he wasn’t paying attention. “Dee.” He paused for a moment, “Dee, the failed actress that hasn’t been anything but a disappointment. And she had the nerve to reject me? A god? She was in way over her head and was letting it get to her. She was going to bomb and fail and probably just didn’t want me to see it happen. That’s what it was. Too bad she never got a chance to bomb, because of Frank. That stupid idiot, scheming to hurt Dee without me. And he knew how much I would’ve loved that scheme.”  
Dennis became gradually louder as he talked and was now starting to yell.

“Woah, calm down. There’s no need to yell.” Matt for some reason was still listening, “anyway, so who’s Frank? What did he do?”

“Frank is just an ugly, gross, old man. He may not have been donkey brained as a child but sure as hell is now.”

“donkey brained?”

“Yeah, like retarded.” He took another swig of beer. “You know who else is fucking donkey brained? Charlie. Now that kid is as dumb as it gets.” The man asked him something but he was too deep in thought to hear. “Yeah. kid. He’s a kid, because he never fucking grew up and is still dependent on everyone. He completely relies on Frank and can’t function unless they sleep in the same bed and walk around the sewers together. He’s clung to Mac almost his entire life. And he is clearly in love with Dee and is as dependent on her presence as he is the waitress’s.”

“oh, so Charlie’s really dependent on everyone, does he cling to you a lot?” Dennis froze. This was the easiest way to make him even more destructive than he already was. His face relaxed and the lines on his forehead completely smoothed. His face had no lines or marks on it and was like a blank canvas. This was especially frightening because rather than his usual annoyed tense face accompanied by angry gesticulation, this face was accompanied with silence and piercing eyes. He became calm, because it was unnecessary for him to communicate his anger through yelling. For his rage was already immensely apparent by practically exuding out of him. The tense rage he was holding within himself could be felt by the whole room. After a very long and uncomfortable pause, he finally broke the silence and stuttered out a few lies explaining that Charlie was in fact dependent on him. He calmed down once he recalled how Charlie would cling to him whenever they left Philly.

“Every goddamn vacation, I end up having to take care of him.” He started thinking about the different times they went out of town until he remembered walking through the woods when they went to Atlanta. That’s when Charlie compared him to a serial killer. At the time he tried to laugh it off and say he appreciated the compliment in Charlie’s observation but it actually really bothered him. “It’s like everyone in the gang thinks I’m some heartless killer.” He tried to sound very nonchalant when he added “I mean, even if I go around sometimes saying I don’t feel anything, it doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings. Everyone gets a little emotionally numb sometimes, right?”

“Yeah, man, sometimes I don’t feel like myself either. I get what you’re saying.” But Matt was far from understanding the severity of Dennis’ emotionlessness. It was a serious problem that he should see a psychiatrist about, but instead he chose to ignore it and assume everyone felt that way too.

“I mean, I guess, if I think about it,” he started talking softer and tried to avoid eye contact. He looked up towards the ceiling, while pulling at his ear attached to his bobbing head. “I do have emotions, I just don’t want people to know, because if they knew then they’d have like a power over me or some shit like that. And I wouldn’t want to give power up like that, not even in the bedroom.” He let out a loud and obnoxious laugh assuming that the man knew he was referring to being tied up and bound during sex, but the entire notion went over the Matt's head. “But sometimes this shell I’ve built around myself doesn’t work the way I think it does. Somehow Mac knows I can feel. When I left the bar earlier I heard him say that I’d probably go kill myself after what had happened. And that’s ridiculous.” He laughed again, but this time it was less obnoxious and more defensive, it sounded like it could easily convert from a laugh to a cry. This topic obviously made him nervous, but he tried his best to hide it.

“That is ridiculous, Mac sure sounds like a piece of shit.”

“Yeah, he is a piece of shit, you know what? You’re right. Fuck that guy.” He smiled and did another big open mouthed laugh while clinging beer bottles with Matt. “Mac’s even more dependent than anyone else in the gang. Well, I’ll tell you what, if Mac didn’t think he needed me for this scheme, then I don’t need him for shit.” 

“Yeah, fuck that guy.” Dennis laughed a cruel and throaty chuckle.

“Although that’s probably what he’d want.”

“Is he gay?”

“In the closet. It’s so irritating. We’ve fucked around before, like when we’re drunk.”

“Oh, interesting, what kind of stuff have you done?”

“Nothing exciting, hand jobs, occasional blow jobs. One time he tried in a passive as shit way to tell me he wanted to be fucked in the ass, but of course he was too much of a pussy to just come out and say it. I hate when he does shit like that, I’ll usually hit him or scratch him or something, but I thought it’d hurt more if I pretended I didn’t know what he was saying, unless he came to me like a man.”

“You shouldn’t have to wait around for that guy though.” Matt gave him a meaningful look and that’s when Dennis was finally able to tell he was interested in him. So he looked him up and down, and from what he could tell the guy must be swimming in cash. Cashmere sweater, expensive shoes and pants, nicely gelled hair, gorgeous face.  
“What do you say we get outta here?” Dennis asked while cocking his head and blinking slowly.

“Gladly. We can go back to my place if you want. We can take my car.” 

“Sounds great.” They went into the parking lot to find his car. Dennis nearly had a heart attack when he saw it was a Lamborghini Countach. 

“Here’s my ride.”

“Holy fucking shit, man!”

“Yeah it’s pretty sweet, huh, I just bought it a couple weeks ago. Get in, my place is kind of far from here, but it shouldn’t be too long.”

On the way there, they were nearing Dennis, Mac, and Dee’s apartment. He told Matt to just stop there since it was closer. This was exactly what he wanted. To find a rich, hot guy for himself and flaunt it. No. shove it in Dee and Mac’s faces. Dennis had found a bunch of gross guys for Dee but this was his perfect select. And he sure was perfect. This would kill mac, and at this point he told himself that he didn’t care if Mac lived or died, just as long as he could show him his new boy toy first.

“Are you sure you want to go back there? I understand why you’d want to, it’s your choice. But honestly if I were you, I’d want to get as far away from your life and those people as possible.” Apparently he listened more to what Dennis said than he thought. “Listen man, from what you told me, I think you just need to let go, at least for a night.”

“You are completely right, it’s time to let go.” They drove without saying a word to one another. An 80s song came on the radio and they both just listened. This time Dennis didn’t feel the need to sing to it as loudly as he could, like he usually did. He no longer felt like he had to yell to be heard, he didn’t even feel the need to be heard, because he was just there. Just being and nothing else. He rolled down the window, put his head through and felt the air flow through his hair. Matt laughed. He was free. And the only thing that mattered was living. He no longer had anything to prove, hide, or scream about. He looked into his reflection in the side view mirror and saw his face that had the same brightness of a 20-year old’s. He had nothing but life to live. And for once he was happy with everything exactly as it was.


End file.
